Erik Wagner - Member - The Prepared

Discussions

Reply to: Dr. Erickson’s viral “COVID-19 Briefing” video is dangerously wrong Posted April 28, 2020

When Erickson talks about “positivity” he needs to clarify by saying PCR positivity (currently infected with virus, shedding), or saying “seropositivity “(blood has sufficient titer of anti-SARS2 abs to show infection has already happened, immune system has responded). It’s possible to be both. However, the point is that multiple studies in Europe and the US have recently (in past 2 weeks) shown that the infection rate is much, much higher than we thought, but so many people have few or no symptoms, so they aren’t being tested by PCR. If you take those cases into the denominator, then yes, the fatality rate drops 30-60 fold.

Reply to: Dr. Erickson’s viral “COVID-19 Briefing” video is dangerously wrong Posted April 28, 2020

I see you’re not following (or don’t understand) the developing story around seroprevalence (examples: studies from Santa Clara, Boston, Germany, Colorado, NY state). These findings have dramatically changed our understanding of how many asymptomatic cases there are, and the true R0 of this virus. To say that the picture hasn’t changed since January is categorically false. Also, your stats calculations need some work regarding NYC population. I don’t disagree that Erickson is oversimplifying and confusing different test result meanings, but I your dismissal of his overarching idea is inadequate.

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Reply to: Dr. Erickson’s viral “COVID-19 Briefing” video is dangerously wrong Posted April 28, 2020

When Erickson talks about “positivity” he needs to clarify by saying PCR positivity (currently infected with virus, shedding), or saying “seropositivity “(blood has sufficient titer of anti-SARS2 abs to show infection has already happened, immune system has responded). It’s possible to be both. However, the point is that multiple studies in Europe and the US have recently (in past 2 weeks) shown that the infection rate is much, much higher than we thought, but so many people have few or no symptoms, so they aren’t being tested by PCR. If you take those cases into the denominator, then yes, the fatality rate drops 30-60 fold.

Reply to: Dr. Erickson’s viral “COVID-19 Briefing” video is dangerously wrong Posted April 28, 2020

I see you’re not following (or don’t understand) the developing story around seroprevalence (examples: studies from Santa Clara, Boston, Germany, Colorado, NY state). These findings have dramatically changed our understanding of how many asymptomatic cases there are, and the true R0 of this virus. To say that the picture hasn’t changed since January is categorically false. Also, your stats calculations need some work regarding NYC population. I don’t disagree that Erickson is oversimplifying and confusing different test result meanings, but I your dismissal of his overarching idea is inadequate.